Book excerpt: Designed to encourage critical thinking about history, theMajor Problemsseries introduces students to both primary sources and analytical essays on important topics in U.S. history.Major Problems in American Women's Historyis the leading reader for courses on the history of American women, covering the subject's entire chronological span. While attentive to the roles of women and the details of women's lives, the authors are especially concerned with issues of historical interpretation and historiography. The Fourth Edition features greater coverage of the experiences of women in the Midwest and the West, immigrant women, and more voices of women of color. Key pedagogical elements of theMajor Problemsformat have been retained: 14 to 15 chapters per volume, chapter introductions, headnotes, and suggested readings. New!In Chapter 1, an exclusive essay by Kate Haulman examines the evolution of the field of women's history and the state of women's history today. New!Chapter 2 now focuses on Native American women, while a new Chapter 3 covers witches and their accusers in New England and the Salem witch trials. New!Chapter 6 draws on recent scholarship on the roles of ordinary and elite women in the numerous reform movements of the Early Republic. Revised!Chapter 7 rethinks and refocuses the text's coverage of women's roles in slavery and the Civil War, and more directly addresses the lives of African American women during and after slavery. New!Post-1960 coverage (in Chapters 15–16) has been thoroughly revised to highlight the women's movement, women's health, recent immigration, and economic changes affecting women.